Coolant leak from under the engine block - water/oil pump weep hole - Yamaha YZF-R1 2004 2005 2006

Jeezes, a water leak again! after I fixed a metal pipe on the front of the bike, all of a sudden, I had a tiny coolant leak, this time from under the engine block. Since it was tiny, I didn't think much of it. But gradually the amount got bigger and bigger. I am using this R1 as my daily ride, so it is super annoying, so what do I do, I throw some liquid radiator leak stop in there, didn't work much, so I threw in another bottle....I know, after all the mechanical work I did on this bike, which I am able to do, this is not a great fix... One day I was going to tackle the problem, So i suspected that it was the thermostat housing again as I had a leak there once, which I fixed by replacing it, so I removed the tank, to check that, result: bonedry...

Where is the coolant leak coming from?? Looking under the bike, it only leaks when you start the engine. Drop by drop, not much.

It was dark so I thought, fuck, it must have been those road bumps where sometime the bottom of the bike touches on, I really believed that I was screwed and that my engine block had a crack.

But wait? Coolant water from the oil carter?? That's where I figured out that the bike has an oil/water pump that sits in the oil carter (bottom pan of engine) and that there is actually a purposely made hole there for when this happens: oil/water pump seal failure!!!

Guess what: I have to replace the oil/water pump for this R1....And it ain't looking pretty..... From lookig at the manuals you have to remove the plastic covers, take out the clutch basket, the exhaust headers and complete exhaust, then remove the bottom carter of engine.... Not sure when I will do this. So far, the radiator leak is holding up and no more leaks.

It actually closed the weep hole up.. It's probably not so great but all is fine so far.

I think I will be selling this bike and tell the prospective buyer what needs to be done.

Tire slime: great stuff

For a good while my tires were getting soft like every 3 days. I had to keep inflating them. With no visible marks on the tire, at first I suspected the air Venturi. But it wasn't leaking there neither. I think my tires are getting deflated from the rims, and I am suspecting it is from taking off the tires with the tire irons that carved a little into the aluminum inside the rim. I used tire slime that I found at ace hardware and I must say, it works pretty good so far.

Yamaha R1 2005 Fuel leak

For the longest while I had a fuel leak. I didn't think much of it. It just smelled a bit of fuel, and each time I stopped the bike from running and put in on the peg, some fuel would run out. I thought, ok, has to be fuel return hose or something-wrong!

Last night I was working on removing the starter again, and I said, let me figure the fuel leak out. I turned ignition on, fuel pump starts pumping, and voila, straight away I saw where the leak was: the top from the #4 fuel injector. That was weird, how did that happen? Well, the fuel rail is screwed on to the throttle body with 2 screws, the screw on the right was loose, however, after tightening it, it still sprayed fuel. I loosened the fuel rail and took #4 injector out, turned out that the top o-ring was slightly damaged, it had to be from that one screw holding the fuel rail down that was loose, vibration ate the o-ring up. Today I bought an o-ring and I am putting it in tonight. Fingers crossed!

Yamaha R1 Starter Problems - Again! Won't start when hot

For the last couple of months, the r1 isn't starting the way it supposed to. The engine would turn over like twice and it would appear that the battery is dead. Being a bit lazy and looking for the easy fix, I thought it was the solenoid. Ordered that off ebay, installed it...same issue. Then I said, it's got to be the battery...ordered the battery, installed it....., nope, that wasn't it either.

A couple of weekends ago, I took out the R1 starter again, and if you've been following my previous blog posts, you know what a pain in the ass it is. Anyway. It appeared to be the starter brushes. Since I didn't have them on hand, I used some brushes from a big disc grinder that I have and filed them off to shape. I didn't think that it would be an issue, but the copper wire on those brushed are half the thickness of the original ones. Result: the R1 starts alright, however, not when the engine is warm. Cold start, no issue, hot start, just the same like before: woo-woo-woo and dead. So, I got it half fixed... Now I am on the look out for the brush kit for the R1 on ebay, but it's like $75... I think I will still try with other brushed from an electrical supply store, just try and find thicker copper wire brushes.

Installed Xentec Super Slim 35W Xenon HID Kit on the Yamaha R1 - 2005

Hi guys, this weekend I finally installed the Xentec HID Xenon kit for my low beam lights on the Yamaha R1. I bough this on ebay from orangemika. Only like $32 (amazing price) I bought the 6000K temperature color.

It was pretty easy to install. At first I had to think a bit where I would mount the ballasts as there is no space really seeing it from the steering side. But then I took off the windshield, and there in the nose there is a great spot right on top of the headlights, that's where I stuck the slim ballasts with the doublesided tape that it came with. Then passed the two wires of each ballast through the mainstay center opening to the light covers.

One thing that I needed to think about was making a hole in the light covers to get the cables in to the lamp itself. The kit did not come with instructions really. So, I drilled a hole in the center of each cover, and passed the wires through. The rest is self explanatory. You have to just make sure on the black and red wire of the HID ballast that you match the right polarity on the original OEM lamp connector otherwise the ballast will not turn on. It's handy to have a multimeter with you, start the bike, and measure the voltage, if you have positive 12V or more then you know the red wire of your multimeter is the positive lead of the lamp, that's where the red wire of the ballast would go. I did it right on my left side hid lamp, but even after measuring i still put the polarity wrong on the right side, and after closing everything up, including the windscreen, noticed the ballast didn't turn on. So I had to open it again and change the wire (easy).

I noted though on this kit that the the positive terminal connector of the ballast is narrower than the negative one, but this is not so on the OEM connector of the original light. So, there is a chance that this narrower connector might wiggle a bit.

But otherwise, oh my, the bike looks mean with HID lights!

The Yamaha R1 of 2004-2006 has H7 bulb sizes. Mentioned that when you order!

Update: August 2014:

For some reason the left xenon beam does not always come on. It's not the cables, I checked. It has to be a malfunction in ins if the ballasts. Super annoying.

Update Feb 2016: Now both xenon beams come on whenever they feel like it (most of the time not), i drive now with high beams, don't feel like removing the front cover to replace them, which eventually I will have to do!

See how nice the HID Slim ballasts fit here? Nice! I stuck them on the headlights with the doublesided tape

This is how the finish looks like. I will try to fill the hole with some black silicone.
The kit should have come with a rubber grommet....

Closeup of the hole I had to drill and the wires on the cover.

R1 Engine Head replaced

Today I worked on installing a good used R1 engine head I bought on ebay for a good deal. It came complete with the valves, camshafts and cover. The cool thing is that it came out of a younger bike with only 7000 miles.

You could see from a previous blog post why I needed to replace the R1 engine head.

Anyway, since I got the engine separated from the bike for a good while I took a little peptalk to myself to get started on this rather big job. The thing is, at the same time, I am making use of this opportunity to basically to a complete R1 overhauling. I already painted my rims orange, and I will be painting my R1 fairing in gunbattle grey. In a future blog post I will show how I am doing that and with what paint (you will laugh).

While I had the right side engine cover off to reach to the crankshaft bolt to adjust the camshaft chain, wow, guess what I found? A good size broken piece of a cam lifter! It was so big it couldn't go anywhere. I was from that spot that the oil falls down to the carter, but there is a big sprocket in the way, so anything that hits that either grinds it, or messes up that sprocket or internals....

I got the engine head cover on, so I am happy I got that out of the way. Next will be removing the throttlebody from the old engine head, clean that up and mount it on the engine.

I am here thinking how on earth I am going to get that engine back in the bike, me by myself, finding a way to get the engine off the ground only about like 6 inches (that's the challenge) and slide the two top engine mounting bolts in.... I am not sure yet how I'm going to do that.
The other challenge I had, is the engine head bolts, I have no torque wrench so I guessed a bit in tightening the bolts, and the next challenge/worry, is that I reused the gasket. I am just blogging all what I remember what's on my mind.

DIY Smog Block Off plates idea for Yamaha R1

Okay, so I was planning to mod the smog block off plates for the R1, by basically filling in the hose outlet with JB Weld. I don't feel like buying smog block off plates, since I have 1) pay 2) wait to get it and 3) eventhough they look pretty CNC machined and all, you don't see all that when it's  mounted on the engine since you never see the engine's head that's behind the fairing.

So, after removing the original smog plates, digging in a little deeper to see what's inside: just a dual membrane valve to let the air in. Behind the 2 valves is a little flame arrester I guess (a tiny grill), and then 2 holes going in the engine head.

So my idea was, instead of filling the smog plate to block off or buy closed off smog block of plates, why not just tap thread in the tiny hole, and screw a screw in with some loctite threadlocker? Bingo! Very simple to do!

Check the pictures:

The Yamaha R1 Engine Cover showing the smog block off plates

After removing 1 smog block off plate....

Revealing the 2 membrane valves

After taking off the membrane valves, you'll see flame arrestors

These are the two holes I am talking about. They go through the bottom. Tap these with thread and....

and screw in two screws. Use threadlocker.

Here's another view. You can also use (better) headless screw with an internal allen wrench cavity 

Yamaha Yzf-R1 Intake Valve lifter problem/repair

My Yamaha YZF-R1 2005 model has now been down for almost two months. It sucks. The last time I drove it, I decided to drive a little fast, so I opened up the throttle, i think I was in 2nd gear, and I let the engine rev up to about 12,000 rpms I believe, maybe stayed a 2 seconds there, I was climbing a hill, when going down hill again, I released the throttle and immediately felt that most of the engine power was gone.

In the mean time i took my bike apart (literally) to take the engine out. I have never thought that I would ever do this by the way...

I had to take the R1 engine out as this is the only way to get a look at the engine head - the two top engine mounting bolts are connected to the engine head and frame of the motorbike.

Already with the engine head cover off I could notice some metal pieces sitting loose, but I could not quite determine what it was.

Here are the pieces that I found in the engine when I took the engine head cover out:

Later I found out that this is actually the inside of a valve bucket, where the valve shim sits and where the top of the valve stem hits.

To get the R1's engine out, it was kind of a struggle in a way, all went fine, up until I had to get the bottom engine mounting adjust bolts out. The Yamaha R1 repair manual calls for a 'pivot shaft wrench'

Here is what the pivot shaft wrench looks like:

Yamaha R1 Pivot Shaft Wrench

Off course I did not have this Pivot Shaft Wrench, so I managed to essentially take a allen wrench and on one end make it like a fat screwdriver, so I could wrench the tool. That did the trick. I was able to turn the engine mounting adjust bolts out.

I placed some concrete blocks under the engine, with like half an inch space left, so when I took out the engine mounting bolts, the engine wouldn't fall all the way to the ground. That was a good thing, as I noticed that i did not remove all of the wires, there were still a couple of cables to disconnect like the one for the stand, one for the gears and the thick cable for the starter motor.

Back to the broken part. On cylinder #4, the valve bucket of one intake valve (intake valve lifter) (the center one of the 3 valves) basically got jammed and the valve broke through the valve bucket.
Why did  this happen? I have no idea, this should not have happened. I even think I read that the 2007 R1 models had some similar issue and that there was a recall, maybe there was a recall on this model as well, I am not sure. I don't think that this should have happened. I always changed oil frequently along with an oil filter. Why did the valve bucket (intake valve lifter) on one of the intake valve jam in it's valve cylinder?

Here are more pictures of the valve problem:

Here's a close-up of an intake valve bucket (intake valve lifter) area. The crack seen is actually a valve bucket still in there

Took these pictures with a Sony Bloggie cam, it does really well in close ups

Note the broken pieces of the valve bucket  (intake valve lifter) on the left. Amazing that that is actually still sitting there and not have been washed away with oil to the carter. Some of these pieces actually broke little pieces of the engine head cover.

Intake valve upper spring seat seen here, where the intake valve cotters burst through.

Top view of the Yamaha r1 2005 engine showing the valves

You could already tell by looking at the intake camshaft that something wasn't right on cylinder #4. The manual says that if you see scratches on the camshaft lobes to discard it and to install a new one.

I know that this valve problem can be fixed. It was not such of a big issue (besides the big work on getting to the problem), the intake valve lifter that's broken has to be removed, hone that area, replace a valve lifter, valve, intake camshaft and that would be it, but how much would this all cost? You know what? I bought an entire 2006 model R1 engine head complete with camshafts and valve cover for around $250, you can't beat that. At least I know I have an engine head that is working.

I was thinking now that I am so deep in to the engine to do some performance mods, like shaving off some metal of the head, port and polishing the intakes and exhaust, but you know, geez, it's already so much work.

And i want to spray the bike too.

I will keep you posted on the progress.

Yamaha R1 Slipping clutch - pictures of friction plates

Slipping clutch on the Yamaha R1, again!

I took out the clutch plates just to check how they looked like. I assumed that there wouldn't be any material left on the friction plates, however there still was.

Problem is that the steel discs are blue meaning that they overheated.

I am going to change it soon, however I was contemplating to actually insert an old steel disc as an extra, so to make more pressure on the springs, and to actually use up all the kevlar on the friction plates. I'll keep you posted.

Here are pics of the R1 clutch plates

Bought Yamaha R1 Brake pads on Ebay from partsangel, they send me the wrong brake pads

Hi guys, As you can see above, I bought front and rear brake pads on Ebay from partsangel for my Yamaha R1. I did the front brake pads and made a video on how to change your Yamaha R1 brake pads. Unfortunately, after finishing the front brake pads, upon removing the rear caliper and removing the old brake pads, I matched them with the new ones I bought. Dang! they don't fit! It's so annoying when that happens, certainly when you already removed the caliper and now you have to put it back without good brake pads. i wrote them about it, wel see what they will answer.

In the mean time, enjoy my video on how to change your front brake pads on the Yamaha R1.

Amazed at durability of Shinko tires

In my ealier posts I mentioned that I installed Shinko tires, well my front tires have surpassed two rear tires changes and the front tire still looks like new! I am amazed.

The EBC brake pads weren't good after all

I replaced my rear tire, and noticed when I removed the rim from the swing arm, one brake pad fell off from the caliper. Actually, the asbestos block separated from the metal plate. That is odd. There was like 4mm asbestos left, how come this came off the plate? Not cool, now I have to order new brake pads. Maybe temporarily I can glue that pad on myself on the plate. Not sure what glue could work though.

Yamaha YZF-R1 Engine code 46 problem and fix

Earlier this month I was driving and all of a sudden pooooffff. My R1 Stopped in the middle of the road. The instrument cluster was still lighted, but it also showed the Engine code 46. The R1's starter motor also wouldn't run. I had to get towed back home. Engine fault code 46 meant there was no power going to the ignition control unit. I was hoping for an easy fix. Checked all the fuses, they were all good. I was hoping that it would be the regulator because I have one. But you can't check it if you can't start the bike.

Push come to shove. After measuring the 3 white wires of the stator (generator) it was clear there was a short.

I removed the stator/rotor assembly and it was clear that this was the culprit. All the magnets of the rotor were broken in a million pieces and slit one of the 3 white wires to the ground. It was even hard to get the rotor out, had to use a hammer.

I managed to buy a used stator/rotor for a cheap price, and place it in and it worked like a charm.

However I must warn you: When you remove the side generator engine cover, the rotor assembly comes out, but: There's a big chance that pieces of the starter clutch and dampeners will fall off and fall in the engine!!!

I had one dampener fall in the engine, and wasn't able to get it out, tried with a vacuum cleaner, it sucked all my engine oil out, but not the 1 dampener that fell in, and I wasn't feeling like to remove the entire exhaust (rusted bolts) to get the oil carter out. so you are warned.

Anyway I got it fixed. Picture will follow of the broken magnets.
If you have any questions let me know using the comment form below

How to remove a starter motor from a Yamaha R1

Here are pictures that I took when I removed the starter from my Yamaha R1. Removing the starter wasn't so easy. Even with the service manual. You know why? Because they left out a little piece of information and I'll give it to you: how to get that damn throttle body out, to be more specific, how to get to the screws on each of the 4 throttle body rubber hose clamps that fit on the intake manifold. The manual just shows an image of removing the 4 clamps... yeah.....how? I'll show you.

Even when the throttlebody was out, it was still not THAT easy to get the starter out. Wow! How am I going to get this starter out? I'll show you. If you have the tools, you can easily do this within an hour. I took much longer since I had to figure out how to get the clamps out. Anyway, here are the pictures of removing the Yamaha R1 starter motor:

The first thing to do is to remove the seat by using a 5mm Allen Wrench

Next is removing the R1's gas tank with a 5mm Allen wrench

Continuing for the tank removal, remove the side panel of tank with a Philips screw driver on each side of the tank

Still for the tank, remove the 5mm allen bolt on each side of tank in front side.

Lastly for the tank, the 5mm allen bolt at the tanks pivoting base under the seat, for now, just make it a little loose, so you can pivot the tank up and can remove the hoses and cable easily.

Now with the tank turned up, start by removing all hoses, this pic show the underside of the tank, I already removed the high pressure fuel line. Keep removing the other fuel lines and 2 cable connectors, when done, remove that 5mm allen pivoting bolt to remove the tank and put it aside.

Next to remove is the R1's air filter housing (air filter box). There are screws all along the side, and one hidden under the rubber that my finger points at. Just pull it out with pliers. There is one screw hidden there.

Remove that connector.

Now with the cover off of the air filter, and air filter removed. Remove the  allen bolts holding the velocity stacks and remove them.

Once velocity stacks are out, you can just take out the bottom of the air filter housing. This is where the real work starts!

But before you can remove the bottom of the air filter box, there are 2 hoses attached, one in the back and one in the front.

Next, remove the 2 hoses as shown here.

Remove this connector

Next, remove the throttle cable, there are 2. Just pull it back by hand, use a thin long angled plier to remove the cable.

Okay, all done and well. How do I get the throttle body out? Here's how:  a wrench with a 12" extension with a 5mm allen key at the end, removing the side panels (not mentioned in the service manual) Okay, I didn't take picture on how to remove the side fairings, but I guess you know that, it's easy. I just remove the top screws.

At first, following the service manual, I thought, man, how can I get these clamps out with a regular allen wrench?? Answer: impossible!!!

Here is one clamp shown with the allen bolt loosened, this is the easy one, from cylinder 3. Throttles from cylinder 1,2 and 3 can be done from the left side by entering your long extended wrench from where the fairings where. The one from the cylinder 4, the clamp is pointed to the right side, so you have to enter your long wrench from the right fairing side that you removed, and fiddle it under the radiator hose.

Once all the throttle body hose clamps are removed, you can pull it off, but carefull, as shown here, there are some more hoses to remove.

When all loosened, it will look like this. I didn't remove all the hoses and cables, a bit of a pain, this being in the way, but I didn't want to dissassemble the entire bike! I'm in enough shit already! :-) Now let's get to removing the starter, shall we?

Once you remove the rubber heat shield, you can see the starter and it's two bolts to remove. Once the two bolts are out, it is tricky to get the starter out, at first you gonna curse, it's like "how did they get that starter in here?" Answer: duh, it was already mounted on the engine when they mounted the engine to the frame, duh. Okay, so how do I get the starter out? That rubber heat shield, try your best to get it out of your way to the right, and there is one to the left as well. Then, once you removed the starter cable, hold that connector with pliers and wiggle the starter back and forth so it can disengage from the transmission. Then when the starter is loose, pull it to the right side as far as you possibly can until you see the spline from the starter. i was then able to pull the spline side up and get the starter out. Same way to get the starter back in, with back first.

The 2007 starter will fit the 2004/2005/2006 Yamaha R1.

Hope you liked my procedure with pictures to remove the Yamaha R1 Starter.

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The difference of an old Yamaha R1 Starter and a newer Starter

I had to remove the Yamaha R1 Starter from my bike, and when the starter was out, I compared the running of the starter motor with the newer starter I bought on Ebay for $124. this Starter came out of a 2007 Yamaha R1.

Yamaha YZF R1 won't start after resting it overnight on rear wheel stand

So, I was working on my R1 last night, and left the sportbike overnight on the rear wheel stand. This morning the bike wouldn't start. More to the point: the starter did not have the power to crank the engine. I feel that there is so much compression in the R1 engine that scarcity of oil in the usual places make the crankshaft unturnable. I think  from being on the rear wheel stand, somehow the oil got distributed front wise and somewhat leaner to the rear of the engine, since the noise is now pointed down. I tried putting the R1 on 6th gear and push it to start, but I don't know about you, each time I tried that, it proved futile, the rear wheel would always lock after releasing the throttle. After pushing the R1 back in my house, suddenly the engine turned over again and started. Wow!
Maybe it's also time to change the battery. Maybe you are not allowed to just have one wheel stand.

Most probably solved the Yamaha R1 overheating problem

Here you can see the thermostat opening where it should, at 160F (70C)

For the past two weeks my Yamaha R1 was overheating. I was getting frustrated because I didn't know what it could be, and what makes it extra annoying is that the Yamaha R1 is my daily ride and parts are readily available, everything needs to be ordered.
I was pondering and was convinced the culprit was the radiator cap. Luckily for me, I also have a Kawasaki laying around and the cap is the same size and also 1.1 bar (16 psi). I thought that solved my problem (it looked good cause I refilled my radiator) but that didn't last long. My temperature kept rising up to about 210F, then I have to make traffic stops where it goes to 220 then 230, getting scary, but when I drove again, ok it backed off a bit to 210, but still is way to high.
I thought it had something to do with the fresh oil I did earlier on. I could not see a leak anywhere but somehow my radiator always gets empty. I thought I had an issue with the thermostat, you can easily see I was getting frustrated.
Tonight I decided to check the thermostat. First I checked the Yamaha R1 service manual to find where the thermostat is located, funnily enough, it's under the gas tank. I took out the thermostat and tested it in the kitchen with a thermometer in a small pot of water, stirring while it gets warmer. It supposed to open at 70c (158F) which it actually did, slowly. And slightly more at 170F.
The thing is, you see it opening, but you have no idea how much open is good enough. Anyway, I decided not to install the thermostat back in, since I ride in a hot climate with daily temps of 90F. But after doing all this, putting everything nicely together. I found was the overheating issue was....... Can you guess? On the road I filled with tap water, this time home, I put coolant in the expansion tank, and there immediately I could see there was a crack in the reservoir where the green coolant came out. Hard to see with regular water I guess. Earlier I looked at the tank, put thought I was scratches, but no, these where through and through cracks!!!
Okay, it's 12:45 am, how am I gonna solve this? After some cursing trying to get the reservoir out (I didn't want to take the exhaust split pipe out just to get that out) I had the reservoir somehow slanted to access the crack better. I found some JB Weld laying around. I roughned the surface around the cracks of the reservoir, cleaned with paint thinner, mixed the JB Weld, and smeared it all around that surface covering the crack. Now I'm going to sleep, and when I wake up, hopefully the JB Weld did its job, so I can mount everything back, fill the radiator and hopefully this time it solved my problem!!!!
So, it's not the radiator cap, not the thermostat, not the radiator, not the waterpump, but a tiny haircrack in the expansion tank!!!

update: you know..... later on, I also found that my radiator hose on the left front of the bike (near the oil filter had a small leak), this happened from the time I replaced my oil filter and had a hard time with it. I just cut the hose shorter, and now everything is super!